From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

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From Leaving Certificate to Leaving School
tion, particularly on the completion of the CAO forms. An important issue
emerged in relation to the timing of guidance provision. Some students
felt that the provision was ‘too late’ in sixth year as they had already
chosen their subjects and often their subject levels. The high proportion
of students who regret taking particular subjects would also appear
to point to a lack of sufficient guidance at the time of the transition
to senior cycle.
A large body of research in Ireland and internationally has focused
on the factors which influence young people’s post-school plans, with
some theorists emphasising differential access to cultural and social resources
(Bourdieu, 1986) while others focus on the rational assessment
of the costs and benefits attached to different options (Erikson and Jonsson,
1996). Other research has gone further by tracing the way in which
the school can shape student decision-making (see, for example,
McDonough, 1997). Research in Ireland has shown the complex interaction
of school experience, family background and student aspirations in
influencing the trajectories taken by young people from non-manual
backgrounds (McCoy et al., 2010). The Post-Primary Longitudinal Study
provides a unique opportunity to capture the views of young people
while they are making these decisions, rather than retrospectively as is
usually the case, and these views can be located in the context of their
entire second-level pathways as well as the nature of guidance provision
in the school.
Higher education was by far the dominant intended pathway among
sixth year students in our study. In keeping with actual patterns of higher
education entry (McCoy et al., 2010), the proportion intending to go on
to higher education is strongly structured by social class background and
by gender. Over and above the effect of individual social background,
young people who attend working-class schools are less much likely to
intend to go to higher education than those in mixed or middle-class
schools, even controlling for prior achievement and other factors. This
study indicates clear differences in the resources and information upon
which young people from different social classes can draw. Middle-class
students have access to the insider knowledge of siblings and other family
members in finding out about colleges and courses. In schools with a
more middle-class population and in more academically oriented schools